ErgoMechKeyboards
Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
Rules
Keep it ergo
Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)
i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²
¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid
No Spam
No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.
No Buy/Sell/Trade
This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.
Some useful links
- EMK wiki
- Split keyboard compare tool
- Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
- Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/
view the rest of the comments
That's excellent news for me! :)
Do you mind me asking what your typing speed is on your two main layouts?
I learned Dvorak for a while but wasn't always at my home keyboard so spent a lot of time with qwerty still. My typing speed was comparable on the two after a month or two... around 80wpm transcribing unfamiliar English language content or 100wpm if I know the text well enough to avoid getting crossed up periodically. The main drawback to switching around was that sometimes I'd sit down at a new keyboard and bang my way halfway through a sentence in the wrong layout and have to start over after resetting my brain.
Fwiw, I ended up dropping Dvorak after a year or three, though. It wasn't any better than qwerty for code with lots of special characters and I realized that I type enough different kinds of content that I wasn't interested in chasing ever more exotic layouts that optimize for a particular distribution of keys.
Makes sense that you would accidentally default the wrong one. Happens with speaking multiple languages too :P
I actually like Dvorak for programming but at this point I'm on a small board so all the special characters are in weird spota compared to default Dvorak. I also love doing typing tests where a good layout is more noticeable. Plus like I said in another reply, it's mostly just for fun
Honestly, I don't do typing tests (I have RSI so I think it's a waste of precious finger energy). I can confidently say that I can type faster than I think in both layouts. I am a software developer so I really only need to type as fast as I can code.